The present invention relates to a driving system for a thermal recording head, in which common driving electrodes and individual lead electrodes are arranged across a continuous heating unit, and more particularly to a driving system for a thermal recording head intended for high-speed driving.
A conventional thermal recording head for which a common driving electrode and individual lead electrodes are arranged alternately across a continuous heating unit will be represented, for example, by the structure shown in FIG. 1. In this drawing, 1 denotes a support substrate, 2 a continuous heating unit, 3 a common driving electrode, 4 an individual lead electrode, 5 common driving lead wiring, 6A, 6B reverse current stopping elements, 7 matrix driving lead wiring, 8 a common driving terminal, and 9 an individual lead terminal.
Such a driving system for a thermal recording head is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publications Laid-Open No. 51-94940, No. 51-115839, and No. 51-81137. To attain high-speed driving, methods wherein (1) the excitation pulse width for driving each heating element is shortened, and (2) the number of heating elements driven concurrently is increased to accelerate the processing speed of one line, are disclosed in the above publications. Further, in Japanese Patent Publication Laid-Open No. 52-10018, there is disclosed a method of obtaining high-speed driving by (3) skipping a white block.